I stand behind you when he tells you he’s done. I grab your hand when his eyes narrow and he says Purgatory is his and he will never give it back. I forget to catch you when his lips bruise yours and he whispers, “You’re just a little too late.” And then he’s gone. 

I wish I could breathe for you. I wish my knees were yours and I was the one with scrapes because Cupid is an alcoholic who skips his meetings to play pool. He missed the shot this time and I can see the arrow jutting out the wall, bleeding your love down the concrete and staining it red. 

I hold your shoulders when you shake. You don’t cry but you’re close and Sam is on the other side of you telling you that we’ll get him back. “I swear, Dean. We’ll get Cas back.” And I ache for the both of you because Sam is swaying and cursing, something in his head making him sick. But he’s trying to be stronger than he is able to, for you. Because you need him.

I’m not an anchor, but I can pretend.

I’ll stretch myself as thin as you’ll let me until I am sure you both can sleep without the fear that he’ll show up and slit your throats while you dream.

“C’mon,” I say, digging my fingers into your coat and inhaling your exhales as best I can. “there’s nothing we can do here. We have to move.” 

It takes a moment, but eventually you nod and stand, pulling Sam to his feet too. He leans his weight on you and you hold him as his face gradients from green to white and back again. This is what you need, I guess. Because you snap back to life in an instant and act like the brother you think you’re supposed to be. The savior you have to be.

I try not to hurt when you order me to grab the angel blade and help Bobby copy the sigil on the wall. I just nod and accept that I still have a part in all of this. No matter how small.

He sank down to his knees and started to pray. To you. The older version, the one between Hell and drugs and just above humanity. He thinks that one is perfect, says that he loved you then but makes it clear that he does not love you now. He can’t, he says. But you’ve run out of reasons to care. Given too many fucks and forgot to order more. 

You are above him now and forever. He can’t change this even if you let him, which you won’t because you have never felt so good. You breathe easier and bask in the sweetness of the souls that call to you and embrace you like the hero they’ve been waiting centuries for. They love you in ways that he never could. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted. Love uncomplicated and reciprocated. It’s beautiful.

But he is still praying. And the floor beneath him is wet as his shoulders tremble and he begs, “please. I need you.”

He’s lying. The souls in your head agree and your foot connects with his face before you can stop yourself. You don’t want to hear him anymore. You hate him. He only gets louder. 

Choking on his own blood, trying to spit out the flood and breathe. “Cas,” he says, garbled and clogged. You kick him again and again, your shoe shoving his words back down his throat. “Shut up!” you yell at him at the souls at everyone who never cared that you existed until they were forced to see how much you mattered. “You don’t get to have me anymore. You don’t get to pick me up at your convenience. I do not belong to you!”

He doesn’t respond. And there are hands grabbing at you, pulling you back as someone screams that you killed him. You didn’t. His chest is still moving in time with his lips that you’ve forced on a loop, mouthing your name silently, hopelessly. 

Whoever was holding you lets go and grabs him instead. They lift him from the floor and glare at you telling to never come near him again or they will find a way to kill you. Hunter’s Promise. 

But you’re God. You can kill them with a thought if you wanted to. And something inside you says do it. It tells you that you are above them and you don’t take orders from anyone. But as they are leaving, his swollen green eye stays focused on you and pain erupts in your chest. 

You didn’t know God’s heart could break.

The gathered around in the arena like they were readying themselves for another death match. But nothing of that caliber was to happen tonight or for a long while. Castiel could see the worry in his brothers’ faces, could touch each lock they were barring over their hearts in order to shut themselves down. He could not understand the fear. Castiel had see the creatures too, had even touched the one called Dean and nothing had come of it. Castiel had not burst into flames or contracted a disease the healers had never heard of. To be honest, the meeting was pleasant and Castiel wished to see Dean again. Soon. 

The crowd began to stir and attempt to silence one another though no one had even spoken since they were all called to gather. The silence almost hurt with the way it pressed so angrily against everyone’s chest. Raphael, the second oldest of them just behind Michael, stood at the center of the arena, looking at everyone in turn, acknowledging their presence. Castiel was more unnerved by his brother than the new creatures on their land. 

“Brothers and sisters,” he spoke with a voice that boomed though he hardly raised his voice at all. “we will avoid the humans at all costs. Do not seek them out and do not let them discover you.” A rush of voices erupted as the angel tried to make sense of the orders being given.

“But they mean us no harm,” Castiel said. His voice not nearly as loud or commanding as Raphael’s, but still gathering enough attention to mean something. Castiel stood from where he was and walked onto the stadium grounds, directly in front of his superior. Raphael’s eyes flashed as he zeroed in on Castiel.

“We do not know that, brother,” Raphael said. 

“But I do. I have spent time with them.” Castiel took a step forward, testing the ground, trying to be braver than he knew how to be. Dean was not the enemy. Castiel had to prove that before the angels let their fear dominate their actions.

Raphael chuckled slightly, walking toward Castiel too. “You may be willing to risk our family’s safety, brother, but I am not.” His words were a contradiction, pretty little desserts to feed to the ones too vulnerable to think twice. Castiel had seen Raphael kill their brethren for much less than what Dean has done. And Castiel had no doubt that if given the chance, Raphael would kill Dean for merely existing. 

“Why are you threatened?” Castiel asked. “They are no different than us.”

Raphael was in Castiel’s face, his hand on Castiel’s throat, faster than Castiel could blink. His teeth were bared as he breathed venom and fire like the dragons that used to inhabit their land too. “Do not ever liken that filth to us, brother. They are nothing like us,” Raphael spat. He threw Castiel to the ground and sneered, letting Castiel cough and gasp for air. “You will protect this family and stay away from them,” he said, much louder than when he first spoke. “or you will die with them.”

The Arena exploded with hollers and screams and Castiel couldn’t make sense of any of it. He stood up, still rubbing his neck and began walking away. His chest hurt as the anger inside him clawed at his ribs, wanting to get out. How dare they think that Dean is an abomination? They know nothing about him. 

A hand grabs Castiel’s shoulder, turning him and holding him in place. 

“For once, Castiel, listen to Raphael.” Balthazar. Castiel’s brother who should’ve spoken for Dean and made Raphael listen to Castiel.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Castiel snapped. He shook free of Gabriel’s grip and left the stadium. 

Every night while Dean sleeps, Sam picks a piece of imaginary plaster from the wall in his head. He knows what Dean tells him, acknowledges just how scared Dean is when he warns Sam about what could happen. But Sam can’t help it. He has to know.

So he waits until he hears the soft snores from Dean and then he closes his eyes. He calms himself, meditating almost, and finds a center that looks a lot like a train-set that he used to sit inside when he was seven. He’s too big for it now, but it works.

Sam stands after a minute or two of sitting and waiting for his mental room to come into focus and produce about a million doors for him to look into. Occasionally he’ll open one and relish in the memory or nightmare, remembering what it felt like to be in that moment. But lately he doesn’t have the time. Dean doesn’t sleep as long as he used to, three or four hours at the most, and Sam can’t help but feel like the reason for that is behind Death’s wall.

He walks to the dull beige wall that’s supposed to blend into his mind like a chameleon on a leaf. For the most part it does look like everything else, except that it throbs and pulses, breathes with the damaged life it tries so desperately to hide. It’s hot to the touch and has burned Sam so many times he’s lost count. This time is no different.

Sam lifts his hand and digs a nail into the surface, cutting into a crack he made three days ago. The puncture produces a scream and a voice that chills him to the bone.

Come out and play, Sam. Michael and I are so lonely without you.

Lucifer’s voice terrifies Sam like nothing else can. And it’s a sign that he should stop, that he should listen to everyone telling him to leave well enough alone. But he has to know. Has to remember.

He jabs his thumb into the crack and breaks off another piece.

There is nothing beautiful about Castiel’s smile anymore. It isn’t sincere, just empty. Dean can’t look at it with wanting to cry and grab Castiel by the shoulders to shake him and scream, “Snap out of this, please. I need you!” But he doesn’t do that. Instead he just tosses the empty alcohol bottle in the trash and helps a passed out angel into bed.

Sometimes Dean crawls into the bed too. Sometimes Castiel isn’t to far gone and asks Dean to stay with him.

“I don’t like being alone.”
“You’re not.”
“Why did they leave me?”
“I don’t know.”

Dean never knows, never has a sufficient answer to satisfy Castiel. But he tries. He says they’re dicks and don’t know what they’re missing. It’s not that Dean wants Castiel to leave him and go back to Heaven, he just wants Castiel to feel as important as Dean almost did all those years ago. He wants Castiel to feel like he’s still wanted.

And he is. Dean can prove it.

But Castiel is never sober enough to notice anymore. So Dean grabs the bottle of pills on the night stand and hides them under a busted floorboard. Castiel will find them in the morning, he always does. But maybe this time will be different. Dean tries to hope.

He promised himself that he’d never let Castiel fall again. But Dean’s almost getting used to not being able to stick to his word.

It only hurts for a little bit.

A little girl asked you once, as you sat on the couch across from her grieving father, “Do you believe in Heaven?”

You said no. Not because you didn’t (you almost had to with everything you’d been through), but because the little girl’s mother was dead and the thing that killed her might have something for you if you could find it. 

The little girl had slipped her hand into yours and squeezed your fingers. “Do you believe in Hell?” 

You flinched only slightly and asked, “Sir, can you tell me exactly what you told the police?”

The man nodded, still crying, and the little girl crawled into your lap and pressed her ear to your shirt right over your heart. “Do you believe in love?” she asked. 

It was hot suddenly, your skin feeling like it was burning. You looked down at the child as she pulled her head from your chest and smiled at you. The man was going on about how the creature tore chunks of his wife’s throat out with its bare hands (or did he say claws?), but you aren’t following any of it because the little girl’s eyes are sparkling like she just discovered fairies existed. 

“My mommy’s heart used to sound like that when I talked about Daddy,” she said. “Is your husband handsome, too?”

You barely register the way Sam snorts at your side, but you learn later when your back at the motel that you are never to old to give Sam Indian Burns. 

You didn’t think the spell would work. You and Bobby had been trying all night and messed it up more than you care to acknowledge. But the tenth time’s a charm and you’re inside now, wandering the blackness of Castiel’s mind. You don’t know where he was before this, if he was hiding or in the open. You just remember using your profound bond as a homing beacon because it was better than trying to get a lock of his hair or whatever the incantation required. And you flew. Like a bullet through the air, your soul to his grace, crashing into webs and despair and the constant screaming of the mad Purgatorians that just wanted to be left alone.

You walk along a path made of something sharp. You can feel it stabbing the bottoms of your boots and you’re glad you can barely see anything because you really don’t want to know what you’re stepping on. So you breathe deep and then exhale a slowly as you can, letting your breath touch the thread hanging from your chest, illuminating it like electricity on a wire. It glows a constant changing of blue and green and you thinks it’s typical. ‘Cause eyes are doorways and both of yours have been hanging off the hinges for years. 

“He is there,” and old soul groans. It’s voice gives you chills and you almost can’t stomach the way it looks like a body turned inside out as you thank it and walk in the direction that it points too. 

The walk is long and most of the creature this far back do not care about you or anything else. You figure that they must be the oldest souls, the ones who’ve given up and accepted that they would never get out of Purgatory. For all you know, they still believe they are trapped there. You know different, but you ignore the souls as much as they ignore you. Choosing instead to concentrate on the string leading you to where you are certain the real Cas must be. 

You take a break around the time the growling starts. A steady rumble of thunder and acid, the apparent anger rattling your bones and telling you that you’ll need to run. You play with your laces, making sure they’re tight, and roll up your sleeves. If you still had the amulet you’d probably kiss is for good luck, but you don’t so you close your eyes and use his name as a prayer. Hoping that he’ll hear it and wondering if you’ve just lit yourself up like a torch in a cave. 

The growling gets closer like they’re hunting you, like they can smell you. They probably can. You crouch down, dig your heels into the almost dirt push off when you see the yellow eyes glaring at you. You pass the beast easily and it follows behind you about a minute later, bounding after you on all four of it’s legs. It’s huge and pissed but it occurs to you quickly that it has no intention of ever catching you. It just wants to play, just want to scare the shit out of you as its jaws snap at your heels, so close to severing your tendons. You can smell coal on the beast’s breath and as you pass into a different, brighter section of Cas’ mind, the creature stops. It sits on it’s hind legs and watches you slow down to reclaim your breath. You turn and look at the creature, finally seeing that it’s a Gryphon with a broken wing. 

“Nice playing with you,” you say and bow your head a if you’re tipping a cowboy hat. 

The bird bows back and you ask it if it will wait for you, if it will help you later. It bows its head a second time and you smile. Because even if this thing is living inside your friend’s head, it isn’t bad, so maybe some of the others are good too.

On the seventh day you punch God. Not Castiel. The real God, the one who created everything and then abandoned it all because he was bored. You found him in Ft. Lauderdale racing dirt bikes and wearing leather jackets in the worst kind of heat and you only know it’s him because he keeps healing everyone with a thought to keep his game running. Except he doesn’t heal himself when you break his nose, sending him crashing to the dirt. 

“Dean Winshetah,” he says sitting up and letting the blood gush over his baby soft hands. “Nice uf ‘ou tah vinally chow up.”

Your foot trembles, wanting to lift up and stomp his face until it’s unrecognizable pulp. And you do. You kick and kick and kick until the sole of your boot is peeling and the bottom of your pant leg is a gradient of red to blue. You don’t feel any better, but you needed this. 

“Can I fix myself now?” God asks, pulling his face back together quicker than it took you to destroy it. You breathe heavy, can feel the tears filling your eyes. You aren’t sad, you swear. The anger in your belly is exploding like fireworks shoved in anthills. 

“Fix him,” you demand. 

“Who?” You raise your fist, ready to take him down again. But he raises his hands in defense and pushes blonde bangs away from blue eyes that make you ache with familiarity. 

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.” 

“Try again.” 

He laughs and disappears before you can hit him again. But you can hear his voice in your head loud and booming saying, “Show me why I should do this. Give me one reason why this means anything to you.”

“He’s my friend,” you say out loud. Terrified of the real reason that keeps writing itself over the Enochian still carved on your ribs. 

God huffs his distaste in your head. “Try again.”

He tells you to kneel before him and you do. At a truck stop motel in Virginia with your clothes tossed in front of the door and his fingers digging bruises into your shoulder. You only wear a necklace made of bottle caps and he calls you his child like the priest you visited when you were ten. This isn’t the same kind of penance, but it’s close and your mouth will still be full of sins you can’t confess. 

You look up at him through your eyelashes that he loves to count. You stare at the grey eyes that used to be oceans threatening to flood your entire being if you would just break all the levees you’d built over the years. You want to call his name when he looks down at you. You want to say “Cas”, want to ask him not to make you do this. But it’s too late and this is a thousand times less than what you really deserve. 

So you lower his head and hold him in your hand, cringing at the way he tells you this is only the beginning. 

The souls don’t leave all at one but in shifts. And it’s like smoke bouncing off glass. You watch through the slot on the Panic Room door because you’re still nursing a broken wrist from the last time you tried to help him. You had wanted to hold him, wanted to run your fingers through his hair and kiss his temple over and over as you whispered that you’d both get through this. Somehow. But the poison in his veins, in his grace didn’t want you there and overwrote his system so many times, using his real voice like a lier bird. He would scream for you, chanting your name and twisting each letter until he said is backwards and said, “I nead you, don’t leave me.” But you did. You had to. And your arm is still swollen and rubbed raw where he tried to flay off your skin. 

So you close the slat and sink down to the ground, your back pressed against the door. You close your eyes and remember the time you parked your car on a pier and listened to the way he sang Coldplay like it was a fire burning inside his chest, begging for oxygen. You didn’t like the music, but you loved him. And you almost thought it was enough. Except that you forgot that even angels can’t read the way you write backwards like Da Vinci. 

“Nobody said it was easy,” you sing, low and as soft as you can with the edges of the words shredding your lips till they’re bloody and hanging by threads. “No one ever said it would be this hard.”

The silence that follows the lyrics scares you and for a moment you think he’s dead that the souls have finally killed everything he is and ever was. But then you hear it, low and muffled, right up against the door and behind your head. The scrape of pants on concrete and a voice whispering, “take me back to the start.”

I was your brother once. Upon a time, long ago in a world I never got used to. But I remember the way you would sit on the bed, cleaning your gun like you cleaned your heart. Bleached white and void of any signs that it had ever been used. “If I drop it there will be evidence,” you told me one night as you pressed my back to the sheets and mapped and escape route across my chest. “What if I’m the one who finds it? What if I’m the one who fixes it?” Your laugh is a sound I will never forget, like buckshot in dead silence, a scream behind a screen, too battered to be used but still so beautiful, imperfectly.

I was your friend once during the moments when war was common place, and all we knew how to do was write letter with tigerlillies, using the echoes of our past for ink because it was the only thing that was waterproof.

You stand on the brink, stand right in his way. You can feel the power steaming from him, hot and angry and filled with the insanity of thousand year old being finally tasting freedom. This isn’t him and you can only imagine how many of them are pinning him inside his head and using his vocal cords like a new toy.

You start to pray.

It isn’t loud, you barely even feel your lips moving, but they are and he knows it. His head snaps to you and tells you to stop. A smirk plays on his lips as he says, “you must bow before I grant you anything.” But you don’t want anything. At least, not anything he can give.

You look to Sam, pleading with your eyes, begging him to back you up even though you know he’s in pain and so far from healthy, you almost feel guilty for asking. He nods. You step closer to the former angel. 

Your words get louder, echoed by Sam trying to run through all the prayers he knows till he syncs up to the one you’ve chosen. It’s a long shot and you are certain you will die before it changes anything. But still you try. 

Because you owe him that much and more.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven,” you start for the third time. The new ‘god’s’ face contorts and his smile falls. “Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.”

The thing grabs the front of your shirt and brings your face inches from his. You can smell the souls on his breath, burnt flesh and static. It doesn’t anger you like it should, instead you just hurt. Ache all over because you did this, everyone did this. And you’ve only got one shot, one fragment of a moment to see if you can reach the friend you used to have. 

“Amen,” you choke out. His grip slackens and you stumble backward a few steps. The smirk on his face is back as he says you failed, the number you’ve reached has been disconnected. But you saw the blue peek out from behind the dull grey his eyes have changed to. 

You still have reason to hope.

I don’t ask if you’ve seen him. If you know which way he walked or when you think he’ll get back. You won’t tell me anyways, this case is too big and you need to go through so much paperwork. But my eyes are getting tired and I can’t sleep when he’s gone. So I ask to borrow your laptop since you’re looking through a book about Greek mythology.

“Just no porn,” you say without looking up from the pages.

I don’t agree out loud, but you already know I won’t. I just want something to pass the time, to distract me until Dean opens the door, kicks of his boots and opens his arm for me as he falls to the bed. Cause I need to breath in the scent of whatever alcohol he’s chosen tonight, the smell like a poison that keeps all my demons at bay. I haven’t slept in two days. 

I need him to come back. 

A bright red logo pops up on the screen. Netflix wants me to sign up for free movies. We don’t stay in one place long enough for it to be worth it, I think. But it yells ‘Instant’ at me and whispers seductively about how I can watch anything I want right on the laptop. I navigate the site for a minute and search ‘Dr. Sexy’ for the hell of it. The first three seasons are available to watch right away. I’m still stuck on the fifth episode of the first season. I don’t like the show that much, but Dean does, and it’s just another topic to bring up so I can use his voice as a lullaby. 

“Sam, where’s the cards?” I ask you, still clicking around the different categories of movies and TV shows. I skip over the documentaries and go straight to horror.

“I don’t know,” you say. “I think Dean has most of them.” 

“You don’t even have one?” After the fiasco in Aspen, where I lost three of the credit cards at the airport, I’m not allowed to keep any of the others. And I guess you remember that tidbit judging by the click of your tongue as you pull out your wallet. 

“You’re in luck,” you say and toss a Mastercard to me. “What do you need it for anyways?” 

“Movies,” I confess. There’s no need to lie, really. You don’t care what I do with the money like Dean would. You’re less frugal, but you still give me a look like you’re asking if I know we’re leaving in the morning. I do, I promise. But it’s almost midnight and he’s still not back from wherever he went. And I need a distraction. 

You close the book in your hands and set it on the wobbly table. You yawn and say your going to bed. “Don’t stay up too late. We need you to talk to the boys in the hospital tomorrow.” 

“I won’t,” I try to promise. I can tell by the way you hesitate before you go to the bathroom that you don’t believe me. I don’t blame you. My insomnia’s track record is horrible. But you don’t blame me for that either, I can tell by the way your hand rests on my shoulder as you pass me to get to your bed. You squeeze lightly and say, “He’ll come back. He always does.”

I know is what I don’t say. Instead I just nod and click my way through 90’s cartoons. You let go of me and strip your shirt before climbing under the comforter. I turn to watch you for a moment, sort of hating how easily you close your eyes and drift away from the world. I want what you have.

I turn back to the monitor and click the ‘sign-up’ button at the top of the page. The doorknob doesn’t rattle like I want it to. The door doesn’t open like I need it to. I know he’ll be back tonight, I know that just as my eyes start burning and fighting the way I won’t let them close he’ll stagger in the room and look at me like he’s just now remembering the stray he picked up two years ago. I know all of this, but as I type in the credit card number and hit submit, all I can think is when? 

You shut your eyes against the bleached light, feeling it burn the skin it can touch. And it’s gone as quickly as it had exploded, so Sam speaks first, telling you to open your eyes, “you need to see this.” But you can feel the change already. The aching in your shoulder that screams out the wrongness of your situation.

Still you opens your eyes and blink past the way they can barely adjust to the fluorescent lighting. Sam’s on his knees in a corner and you walk too slowly as you let the fear set into your bones. You know what you’ll see when you round the boxes, you don’t need to see the too blue eyes that stare up at you or the feather-shaped bruises on the kid’s back as he lays with his cheek against the pavement. Or maybe they’re birthmarks, you try to reassure yourself. But it doesn’t work, because Castiel can’t be any older than two years old and he’s shaking like he’s hypothermic, except you can see the steam wafting from his tiny body, like Constantine returning from Hell. 

And maybe this sort of Hell is appropriate for the child, but you can’t stop wishing that Castiel had just died instead. That you were looking at black wings etched into concrete and not a helpless toddler with tears streaming down his small face. Because Sam keeps repeating that “we can’t leave him”. And the fallen angel is calling your name, saying “sowwy ‘ean” over and over like white noise on an evp. But all you can do is feel guilty as you lift the boy into your arms and whisper, “i know.” 

They run away on a Monday, their backpacks slung over their shoulders, Castiel’s filled with food and Dean’s with their clothes. They’re going to Michigan. Neither one knows what’s there for them, just that Dean had closed his eyes and pointed to it on Sam’s state puzzle, so that’s where they were headed.

Dean holds out the plastic compass he got in his Lucky Charms last week. The little arrow is broken and doesn’t sit the way it’s supposed to, but it still points north.

“We gotta go that way,” Dean says, pointing toward the forest across the street.

“You sure?” Castiel asks. He doesn’t like the woods. Ever since he and Dean watched that horror movie about the man in the hockey mask, Castiel’s been scared to into them.

Dean just takes Castiel’s hand, threading their fingers together. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” He says and gives Castiel’s hand a squeeze.

Castiel watches Dean for a moment then breathes a sigh of relief. “To Michigan or bust,” Castiel nearly yells. Dean laughs at him.

They start walking again, hand in hand. If they’re lucky, they’ll make it to Michigan by sundown. But Sammy’ nap is almost up and Dean swears they’ve gotta go back to get him. Castiel doesn’t mind. They’ll get there someday.